CHAPTER ONE: A WORLD OF MAGIC AND DEATH

ACT I: THE FALL

𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐌𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐑 𝐇𝐀𝐃 𝐁𝐄𝐄𝐍 through a lot in her eighteen years of life, plain and simple.

She grew up well with nice parents who didn't shun her for her smarts and tried to nurture them. The two dentists loved their daughter and that didn't change when she started showing signs of the impossible or when an old woman dressed in a 17th-century-like cloak told them their daughter was a witch. They were humans, non-magi or muggles as the British wizarding world called them. They were logical people, who believed in science so it was a shock to them but they got through it together as a family.

Sending their daughter far away to a magical boarding school in Scotland wasn't in their ten-year plan but it happened anyway. They would've changed their minds if they had any idea of the danger and trouble their brown-haired daughter got up to there with the boy who lived and a redhead troublemaker.

Hermione was a woman of logic, science and reasoning until she became a witch and she still liked to think herself so. She knew she would be an outcast, she was from a non-magi family after all. There were no massive libraries down the hall for her to pour over, nor were there butlers, tutors or family members who could teach her all the wonderful things she could do. She didn't even have a wand. So she did the best she could, she would prove to them all she could become a great witch and she did. She was named the greatest witch of her decade and it wasn't something she or others took lightly.

Hermione had gotten bored with all the math and science books she needed to read and learn for normal school so with a whole new world of possibilities she drowned herself with magic books and texts. She read all her textbooks back to the front three times to make sure it sunk in before she went. She brought a few extra books to better prepare herself but her parents were not that well off (compared to other witches and wizards) and the Goblin Bank confused her parents so she was happy with what she got and the fact there was a massive library waiting for her made it easier.

Going to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was a magical experience for the eleven-year-old girl. It was a new place where she could better fit in and find new friends. She didn't have many back home and she was excited to befriend magical people. But it wasn't that easy for her, even if she got sorted into the red house, Gryffindor - known for their courage, loyalty and chivalry which made sense considering their animal mascot was a lion.

When she read History of Hogwarts, she assumed she would be placed in the blue house of Eagles who thrived for knowledge above all. She would've fit in better instead of Gryffindor, she was seen as an outcast. It didn't help she was much more mature than the others who wanted to run around and get into trouble rather than read and learn. She didn't understand why they weren't as excited as her to learn, they were capable of magic and in the great school for wizarding for crying out loud!

So in a house full of mostly boys (very loud boys), she befriended the soft-hearted Harry Potter who had the biggest destiny she could've thought an eleven-year-old would have. He was just like her, he grew up around humans unaware of the magic running through his veins. He tried to learn everything he could but he always found himself in trouble and he had a hard time grasping most things. He was confused with the wizarding world like her and they grew into it together.

His friend, on the other hand, Ron Weasley was an annoying troublemaker who ate like a glutton. He grew up in a massive family full of magic so she didn't understand why he didn't try and learn everything he could considering he didn't know much. But he hated learning and reading. She would've scoffed if someone said she would end up loving the redhead but she did.

The three well two started off on the wrong foot with Ron calling her a know-it-all after she tried to help him with a spell. She couldn't help it, she was an excited girl who felt out of place with the only thing she could do was try and show off her smarts to be accepted. That's all she wanted. But they became friends when she found herself in a bathroom with a troll and they helped her not get clubbed to death on a Halloween night. Then she found herself wrapped up in a mystery and then one thing after another happened every year.

She might've hated it at first but she grew to love the boys as her family and no matter the danger they found themselves in be it an ancient snake called a Basilisk and getting petrified, rescuing the man that everyone thought was trying to kill her best friend but ended up being his godfather, messing with a time turner, the Tri-Wizaridng Cup and all it's horrors, metaphorically fighting off a pink coloured toad of a woman and creating the Dumbledore's Army. 

She didn't mind fighting for her friends and the freedom of Britain's Wizarding World in the Battle of the Department of Mysteries or sneaking into Gringotts where another dragon was involved. Or on a trip around the globe looking for famous ornate pieces called Horcxues all to bring down the man terrorizing the wizarding world and the very person who killed her best friend parents; Lilly and James Potter.

Which is exactly where it landed her, dying. All because she was friends with people whose trouble always seemed to follow like a lurking shadow. The old Hermione would've cursed at herself for getting herself in this mess but now? She could happily die to make sure her friends were happy and alive. That's all she could've asked for, she was finally something more than the muggle-born. She would be named as a survivor of the wizarding world.

So with a pretty yet traumatising flash of green, Hermione stopped breathing, her time had come and she was no more. Hermione had died, she would no longer see her witty best friend who always found himself in trouble, kiss her idiotic boyfriend or tell her parents the truth after obliviating them.

Until she wasn't.

Until she woke up.

Alive and breathing,

Hermione had never really thought about what she would see after death. Would it be complete darkness or just simply nothingness? Would she become a poltergeist like Peeves? Would she wait in a beautiful garden for her loved ones to come after their time on Earth was done?

She didn't know and she never really thought about it, she hated thinking about it, hated being confronted with her own mortality even after facing death-like situations every year at school. But waking up after dying atop a handsome brown-haired man, his eyes closed in pleasure was not what she thought - not at all. 

Someone better have an explanation because even with all her smarts, Hermione Granger was at a loss for words (which didn't happen much) and without any idea what had happened or why. 

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It's been a while...Hi. 

Major shoutout to DistressedDelegate for helping me get my shit together! 

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